The ensemble was founded in 1970 on Philippe Herreweghe’s initiative by a group of friends studying at the University of Ghent,. They were one of the first ensembles to use new ideas about baroque performance practice in vocal music. Their authentic, text-oriented and rhetorical approach gave the ensemble the transparent sound with which it would acquire world fame and perform at the major concert venues and music festivals of Europe, the United States, South America, Hong Kong and Australia. Since 2017 the ensemble runs its own summer festival Collegium Vocale Crete Senesi in Tuscany, Italy.

 In recent years, Collegium Vocale Gent has grown organically into an extremely flexible ensemble whose wide repertoire encompasses a range of different stylistic periods. German Baroque music, particularly J.S. Bach’s vocal works, has been a speciality of the group and is still the jewel in its crown.

 Besides performing with its own baroque orchestra, Collegium Vocale Gent works with several historically informed instrumental ensembles to perform these projects, including the Orchestre des Champs Elysées, Freiburger Barockorchester and Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin. It also works with prominent symphony orchestras such as the Antwerp Symphony Orchestra, Amsterdam’s Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra or the Staatskapelle Dresden. The ensemble has worked with Ivor Bolton, René Jacobs and Paul Van Nevel.

 Under Philippe Herreweghe’s direction, Collegium Vocale Gent has built up an impressive discography with more than 100 recordings, most of them with the Harmonia Mundi France and Virgin Classics labels. In 2010, Philippe Herreweghe started his own label φ (phi). Since then some 20 new recordings with vocal music by Bach, Beethoven, Brahms, Dvorak, Gesualdo, Haydn or Victoria have become available.

 Collegium Vocale Gent enjoys the financial support of the Flemish Community, the city of Ghent and Belgium’s National Lottery.